Programmer art. It can be awe-inspiring (Like anything by Dean Dodrill or Derek Yu), it can be messy-and-sketchy taken to an art form by way of awesome thematic unity (I refer you to the work of James Silva), or it could be utterly awful, an eyesore beyond all eyesores (names withheld to protect the guilty).

Odds are if you are a mad code-monkey set on a life of fame and fortune as a lone-wolf developer, you fall into the last category. Me? I can draw. I was an artist before I was a programmer. I’m not brilliant, but click that link and check out my deviantArt page — if you are looking for art tutorials, odds are you would consider hiring me to do your art. Provided you had the money, and the style was right, of course.

(And hey, if your game is truly awesome, and I have a reason to believe it will get done, contact me at the email on the About page, and we can talk turkey.)

I think I can help you out. I’m a decent (but not fantastic) programmer, and a decent (but not fantastic) artist, and with these two skills, perhaps I can serve as a bridge between programming and art so that you can walk across my burly1 shoulders to the promised land of awe-inspiring (or at least awesome thematic unity) programmer art!

Let’s do this crazy thing.

So, my next series of games, the Super Crossover Arcade series, is going full-on retro with pixel art because I can make pixel art look good at a relatively fast pace. And over the course of several tutorials, I’m going to let you in on all of my dark secrets, as I can’t find many decent tutorials out there besides Derek Yu’s.